UNCERTAINTY AND OPPORTUNITY
I want to welcome you and I will be sharing with you from my experience and from what I have seen, and again from some of the recent studies that I am doing because for every entrepreneur, you are always studying and studying and studying because there is always something new. So we will share from our experience, we will share from new things that we are getting to know. Sometimes in December, I think I was in the States and I listened to a song, funnily I won’t be able play that song to you but I will tell you some parts of the song.
It was a song written by a lady called Indie Arie, some kind of funny name, and the title of the song is that ‘There is hope’. And the lady said that back in the United States, she would complain oh this is not working, that is not working and she is a successful musician. I just said well. Somehow she went all the way to Brazil and she met a brother; she called the guy a brother. She said she met a brother who wanted to sing like herself. But this brother was living in a house (he was so poor) without a door, no window, it seems like he has no hope. And in addition to all those challenges-environmental challenges, this brother didn’t even have eyesight. He couldn’t even see and yet he wanted to be a great musician. Then the brother said to her (the one who would complain back in America) “It’s not about your eye-sight, but it’s about the size of the faith that’s inside of you” So even the one who did not have the eyes, who was living in deplorable condition said “NO, I can still do something”.
The reason why I believe Nigeria is the way it is, is because we don’t have enough entrepreneurs. So I want to start from there.
Entrepreneur is a way of thinking; it is a way of thinking. It is a way of life and you can apply it to any aspect of life. You can apply it to business; you can apply it to ministry; you can apply it to your home; you can apply it to a community. It is a way of life. It is a way of looking at the world. It is a mind-set.
When you look at the situation in the country, some people see so many problems, problem, problem, problem, or bad roads and this and that, no power supply, no this no that. But there is something you will take out of here; I want you to meet a couple. , A very interesting couple. Now, you know when you talk about couples, it is a question of two people coming together and then, they become one. That is how it is suppose to be. That is why they are a couple. But most of the time, remember when you have two people joined together, you always think to hear or see the dominant partner.
Now when two people are married and the wife is outspoken, most of the time it is the wife you will hear. You’re not, probably going to hear the man all the time. But now, if the man is very domineering, you will probably see him more of the time than the woman. So in a partnership, you will always see the one that is the domineering partner. So I want to introduce you to a couple. And they are called ‘Uncertainty’ and ‘Opportunities’. They are a couple.
Uncertainty and Opportunity. They go hand in hand, they are so much in love. They don’t leave each other. They go together. You always see them together. But the problem is that, Mr. Uncertainty is the head of that home. He’s outspoken. He’s everywhere. You will hardly hear Mrs. Opportunity. She’s the gentle one. She’s hidden there. Now I want to tell you something. Every entrepreneur knows that wherever you find uncertainty, there are opportunities.
I deliberately used the word uncertainty because…my job is just to open up your mind.So I just want to be able to ignite something in you that will set you thinking. So that long after you’ve left here, you will still be up by 1:00am or so, still thinking about what you have heard.
I used the word uncertainty because some other people will use the word ‘risk’. But risk is negative. Risk is the ill, presupposes that there is some danger there. Don’t do it because it is risky. It is a risky business. Now, that presupposes that there is some danger there. But uncertainty means that there is something we don’t know about it, so that if we know our perception of it may be different.
The reason why a lot of people can’t see gain or opportunity where others can see is that they don’t know. They don’t have full knowledge of the uncertainty that is surrounding that thing. Let me give you an example.
Recently, I was on a project and somebody gave us a very big cheque, very big. He divided it into three. One cleared and the rest didn’t clear. And everybody panicked. Oh this man has destabilized us, he has disorganized us.
Are we ever going to get this money? And I was smiling because as far as they were concerned it had become risky. Because of the uncertainty of whether we are going to get that money or not, because we had banked on that money for something else. And I said, “wait wait wait, what are we talking about here. And I said, if we got one third of the money, whoever gave us the one third should be able to go the whole journey”. They said a third is small, I said a third is not small because that one third is quite a lot of money. So if he can give that one third, something is happening. I am going have a meeting with him. So I went for a meeting with him. And because they are professional people, they were struggling to explain themselves and I was laughing because I wasn’t looking for explanation, sorry or this. I was hoping that: My thought was that we would be able to solve the problem because I was confident that whoever brought… Maybe I should take it home for you.
We are talking about 500 million naira and somebody had paid 200 million naira and he is struggling to pay 300. So if he can bring that 200, surely he can bring the rest. And we went, we went for a meeting. So they were struggling, we are very sorry, is this, is that and I was waiting because I was looking for something. I was looking for information so that the problem can be solved. Because I knew there is an opportunity there. And it turned out that they had something and they didn’t want to sell it because they didn’t like the market price. And they want a bank to give them a loan. And of course it is usual with banks, when you want it, they won’t give you, so they took a process and they were going back and forth, back and forth. And it turned out that what they have and didn’t want to sell, we wanted. I didn’t tell them I knew I had the solution, I pretended like I didn’t know. I said that’s all right, no problem. In our presence they called and they gave us another post-dated cheque but I knew I wasn’t going to cash that cheque so I went. I didn’t even tell my partner that we went to together but I knew I had the solution because I had gotten the information that I want. I knew somebody wanted to pay me because I sought for the information. They thought it was a risky thing, I knew there was no risk because I already had an information. Now when I went for additional information, I got to know that what they were giving the bank to give them 200 million naira was worth about 1.9 billion naira.
So a man who had 1.9billion cannot have a problem 300 million. Now I have the information now and it is not risky as I thought before. So I went back. I knew I had the solution. So I allowed about 2 days and I now called my partner. I said look listen we don’t need to present that cheque. What they have and they want to borrow against, we need. Why don’t we take the cheque back to them and tell them by the way, instead of, listen, give us that because when we get the money form you, we are going to use it to buy the same thing that you have. When I spoke to the guy, the guy was happy. And there was exchange. No more agro, no risk, we have gotten our value for what we want, they are happy. And everybody is happy. What am I saying?
The reason why you will consider something risky and you will not go after it is because of uncertainty and because you don’t have enough information. If I tell you for example, I was analyzing with Pastor about two weeks ago. Tell anybody who knows what’s good for them, any land between Lagos and Ibadan that is offered for sale, they should go and buy. Any land that exists between Lagos and Ibadan, they should go and buy. As long as it is about 5 or 10 kilometers from the road, from that express road, you can buy and keep it. Why do I say so? Now somebody will say that is a risky investment, very risky, because he doesn’t have the information. He is working on the basis of uncertainty but I have the information. Number one, Lagos was moving towards Lekki, Lekki all the way to Egbe has become very expensive, way expensive and there are already so many people there. Human beings will always survive……………………
The reason why you will consider something risky and you will not go after it is because of uncertainty and because you don’t have enough information. If I tell you for example, I was analyzing with Pastor about two weeks ago. Tell anybody who knows what’s good for them, any land between Lagos and Ibadan that is offered for sale, they should go and buy. Any land that exists between Lagos and Ibadan, they should go and buy. As long as it is about 5 or 10 kilometers from the road, from that express road, you can buy and keep it. Why do I say so? Now somebody will say that is a risky investment, very risky, because he doesn’t have the information. He is working on the basis of uncertainty but I have the information. Number one, Lagos was moving towards Lekki, Lekki all the way to Egbe has become very expensive, way expensive and there are already so many people there. Human beings will always survive……………………
Nigeria has a shortage of housing of about of 25 million housing units. If all we are doing every day is building houses, in the next 15 years we will not build enough and we are not even doing that. We are not building new houses. Now so human beings will seek houses somewhere. So when they saw that the Lekki housing was becoming a problem, they we simply moved to the next available place, which is Lagos - Ibadan expressway. Now those people moving from Lagos, those ravaging people looking for accommodation, they are now reached the redemption camp. They are going beyond. I want to ask you a question. Ogun state now made it easy. Ogun state said any land that is 2 kilometers to Lagos Ibadan expressway is marked as industrial zone. So all a lot of the industries in Lagos are now taking their new factories along that route. Now if a Lagos Company, listen to me please, if Lagos companies were to be sited immediately after redemption camp and they have staff. I want to ask you a question. From a cost effective point of view, will they have their staff live in Lagos or Ibadan? One of the generator companies am aware has a very big industrial land where they want to assemble generators immediately after the Lagos redemption camp. Lagos on its own without any influence has reached Mowe, has reached redemption camp and is advancing. Are you going to wait until they come and meet you in Ibadan? And you say there is uncertainty there, well so just because of the information that you heard. You have assigned a risk level that is too high. So what you need to do to be able to see opportunity under situation of uncertainty is to be able to get more information. And to understand that beyond every problem, beneath every uncertainty, there are opportunities waiting to be tapped.
Nigeria has a population as we are told of 150 million people. I think some 7 or 8 years ago we had 400 or 700 thousands lines belonging to Nitel and they weren’t working, you had to bride. Some people saw that as a problem, human beings must communicate. This is a very large market. Let me tell you something, today MTN cannot open their mouth and to tell you their turnover. They can’t tell anybody because if they tell anybody, there will be in crisis. They can’t tell you. They are digging out sites in South Africa and bringing them here in a hurry. But 7 or 8 years ago somebody said it makes sense to bid for a license for $250,000,000 and pay it. They have done so...10% of MTN for almost a billion dollars.
If you hear what is not true, what do you do? Disregard! If you hear what is not fair about you, keep it away from irritating you. If you hear someone say what is ignorant about you, because the man is ignorant he’s talking like that, just smile! But if they are justified to say what they are saying about you, learn from it and move on.
Entrepreneurs don’t have time to discuss people. They are asking themselves questions on how things can be better. What have I said, this is the greatest time, and it’s the best time to be a Nigerian. This is the best of time to be a Nigerian. But we have a problem we are used to: Let me go to somebody to give me a note, then I will go somewhere to get a contract and I will execute that contract, then when I make money, then I’ll buy a jeep, I will buy that, I will buy that. If that money finishes, I will get another contract.
Entrepreneurs seek out and take advantage of situations of uncertainty because they know beneath uncertainty lays tremendous opportunities. Many of us when we see unpleasant situations, nothing rises within us. Nigerians have come to accept that things must be the way they have been. I told them in Lagos (I was telling the bankers), “I thought you guys should be smarter than this”. All of them are in Victoria Island, all of them are spending. The bank uses a generator in the head office. They can buy 1000kva generator and buy like three because now that NEPA is zero, you must have first back up and second back up. And I ask all of them “all of you, put together what you used to buy generator this year, bear in mind you are going to buy again in two years time, why don’t you put all that money together, float a company and build a power plant in VI and charge each other ”. I said, “Ah you are waiting for politicians”.
You see the problem we have in Nigeria by infrastructure is that until the time the private sector takes it up, every scope of government have their own peculiarity. If you don’t have entrepreneurs in government, see what will happen to Lagos state in the next four years because an entrepreneur has come into government. The man is going around the whole world, he is raising money from Paris, from this from that to put infrastructure in Lagos because he’s an entrepreneur. You fix problems because you know beneath problems lies opportunities. Many of us if we drive through hold ups, terrible ones; your leg is aching you. That leg is aching you because God wants to tell you something, that the situation demands change.
We are so complacent, we are waiting for somebody else to come and solve the problem.
In 1991, I was a senior manager in a bank and I told them, I said: “the future of banking is in ATMs”. They said I should keep quiet; you don’t know what you are saying. I forced them to send me to do a course in Germany in 1992. I said this is the future. Now let me tell you this, every time you put your card in that hole they take N100 from you; so that you won’t sue them they give you an option: ‘YES or NO, do you want to pay N100?’, and you use your hand to say yes. Listen to this, if there are ten million transactions in a day, multiply that by N100 that is one billion. The revenue that the banking sector will make in 2008 from that will be over 500 billion. They will pay for those ATMs in one year; you are going to put your card in the hole, you are putting it, you are putting it and they are drawing your money and they are taking your N100.
Why? Because somebody sat down and said it is not good for man to be without cash when the bank is closed. Like God said it is not good for man to be alone. So somebody said; an entrepreneur said: it is not good for man to be alone without cash after official banking hours. Look at all of them, they are running everywhere to put those ATMs. And somebody sat down and said ‘I should be able to withdraw from ATM irrespective of what bank I am’ and somebody say its interswitch.
What do you have to offer the society? What do you have to offer your family? What do you have to offer your community? What is it that you see you don’t like that there must be a change?
A man before the world war was running a defense company. He was running a company that was supplying, they were researching, they will bring out new equipment, new, so they were supplying to the US military. But you know when the war is about to end, some people are unhappy. So when the war was about to end, the man realized they have 1,500 staff but the entrepreneur in him started to show that we are going to be in trouble. What am I going to do with 1,500 people? Because once this war is over, these politicians will forget about us, they will be thinking of how to rebuild the economy. While he was thinking about that, he went on a vacation with his family. And he took a picture. He took a picture and his daughter, you know how children are, said Daddy I want to see that picture now. If it is you, you will shout I will slap you. Which picture do you… picture don’t come out like that. They told the girl we need to take it to the shop, they will wash it and they will do this. But the girl said, Daddy I want to see that picture now. The guy sat down. It didn’t leave his mind because he is an entrepreneur. There is no challenge, no problem of human race that comes to the mind of an entrepreneur, he becomes uneasy. So something rises up within him because he wants to solve that problem. This man went for another 3 years and he invented Polaroid. It was the request of a young girl that I want my picture now that led to a ‘wait and get’ picture.
The first set that the man made sold in one day, thousands. And in the next few years, a company that was supposed to go under came up again. Now if you look at it that entrepreneur set out to solve problem and you then look within you environment. You find problem to solve and you are ready to address them. Somebody sat down and discovered that when you have a party, and people have eaten and eaten, all of them will go. You first of all have to start washing plate and doing this and doing that when you should go and rest. Somebody said no, we wouldn’t do that again. I will be a professional caterer, I will bring everything. And people started to embrace it gradually and gradually. Has an industry not emerged? Those in that industry are they.
You see human beings run in cycles. Do you remember how many years ago when Brazil has so much inflation that they were changing the currency everyday. It’s not long; it’s not up to 20 years. Do you know that today, Brazil is one of the most prosperous, they are even, I read a report a few days ago, somebody saying that Brazil is going to be hotter than China even though they have less population. The world has changed. Do you know that there is now food shortage because there is an emergence of middle class that want to eat more because they can afford more all around the world. The rate at middle class is re-emerging which in China, in Brazil, in India is so much that there is pressure on grain; on rice and it is going to affect food prices world wide. And to further compound it, they said because oil prices was rising too high, they were looking for alternative fuel, so they were beginning to use things ‘grains’; ‘coal’ and so to make plastics and it made the food situation worse, and today there is food crisis in the world over. What does that tell you?
That famine may not be as risky as you thought before. Everybody here knows that there is worldwide food shortage and there is a bush nearby. An entrepreneur will not sit down, since I read the report that there is short of 25 million housing unit in Nigeria and to confirm it, I went to Zaria. And I discovered that there is shortage of housing in Zaria because of the student in ABU. University cannot accommodate them. And I went to overseas and I discover that it is a common trend for universities all over world, for universities not to be able to accommodate. And when there is a university in that community, there is housing needs and the students around that place are among the best tenant to have, if you know how to manage them. What does that tell you? That it’s not so risky again for me to have a house in Zaira. In other words, if I’m in real estate business the whole nation is my constituency. Now if I know already that there would not be a difference between Lagos and Ibadan now in ten years, it means that the risk of that land I’m trying to obscure, that is risky for me to put 10,000 now is not as risky anyway because that land may become 1 million.
What am I saying? What is certain? There is no fortune to be made out of it. What we all know today will not make you money anymore. It is your understanding of uncertainty and seeing less risk better than other people that positions you.
I am telling you this is the best time to be a Nigerian because wealth is spreading so fast even to the villages; if only you knew. The population is expanding, people must live somewhere.
I was discussing with someone, I said ‘the way we build is very wasteful’. So I gave him an analogy: which one would you prefer; to have a three bedroom flat the way the size is today and two families managing it or to have half the size of a three bedroom (sitting room half, bedroom half, everything half) and now have two units so that two families live separately. Which one would you prefer for the same cost? So if the rent now were to 200 thousand naira per annum and two families are struggling with it, what if the rent is 100 thousand naira and its now two separate flats but it’s a smaller size.
What am I saying? It is time to wear our thinking cap. That’s the job of an entrepreneur. What you call an uncertainty depends on who’s looking and it depends on the level of information that you have. But I want to advise you; start, think big, stick with it! Start; think big, stick with it! Look for an area where you can make a difference. It doesn’t matter if there’s no money in it now, have a vision. Think rich; stick with it if you believe in it. Don’t let the opinion of people bother you. Don’t even let your past failures stop you. But we have a problem here; I have a problem with the way people judge failure. As far as I am concerned, when you fail you’ve just earned yourself a B.A degree. Then again, I am proud when I fail. I’m proud! Why? I can rearrange myself and come out stronger.
There are two approaches to failure; there is the British approach, there is the American approach. Now we have adopted the British approach. When you fail, everybody run away from you. When you fail, it is seen as if something is wrong with you. So you too take it as if something is wrong with you and it becomes difficult but you can fail for many reasons. The economy can move against you, you might have made a misjudgement. Everybody makes misjudgement. You make ten decisions; two go very well that people will not remember the other eight.
So what are we saying? Some people are afraid to take risk or to face uncertainty because they are afraid once I fail everybody will abandon me. But do you need everybody? Have you ever been with anybody before? You have always been on your own. Maybe you don’t know. When problems come, you will know that you have always been on your own any way. This is nothing new. But the American style is somebody can make a mistake but when they make a mistake they can rise again. From a dead company a lot of money can still be made because they know that beneath every problem there are opportunities.
You must have capacity to take pains to achieve your goal. You must be able to take pains in an extraordinary way. It’s painful; it’s not easy to build as an entrepreneur because you are working against so many odds particularly in life. You must be able to shake your head and say: and so what. Recently we were on a project, about five of us and we were trying to raise a large amount of money. And it got to a point that it was not going to work and they were all discouraged. They were all downcast, they said let’s give it up. And I was laughing at them. I said did you think before that it was going to be easy? Did you think we would ever get to a point where we want to give up? By any standard in two days; and I am a student of statistics because statistics is wonderful. I said the rate at which we have done in the last two days, if we continue at that rate, we will exceed our expectation. So I started phoning all of them, I started encouraging them ‘saying you are wonderful, didn’t you see the write up you wrote? Somebody said it was a beautiful write up, somebody said it is the best write up he has ever seen’. So I started pumping them up with encouragement. And in a few days they said ‘what has happened?’ Why? Be able to stick with it.
When Jeremiah was rebuilding the wall somebody said that, the wall you are building if a fox were to climb on it, it will fall. There are human beings like that, they will speak one word and you will not be able to eat for one week. That’s there profession. They do it to kill people’s spirits. Who are you, eh? I tell people always, I say ‘I am positioned to be known all over the world. I enter everywhere I enter and they will know I entered’. Why? Because there is one word. Jesus said: ‘Go ye into the world’. He didn’t say go to Ibadan, He said into the world. I said I hold on to it, everywhere I am going I talk with authority and I say this is what is going to happen. Yes and I act on it so don’t let anybody discourage you. The one who wants to discourage you doesn’t know as much as you know. My wife can’t discourage me, my children can’t discourage me, my pastor can’t discourage me. If my pastor tries to discourage me, I will remember that he’s flesh as me and he’s struggling and that he can miss it sometimes. So even he can’t discourage me because I’m going somewhere.
One thing I have seen with most entrepreneurs is that they love people. I love people because they are either your customers, your friends or they are there with you to chat in your lowest moment or to pray with you or to fight you in your lowest moment. You know some people will fight you the time you are down and you say because of you; whatever it’s going to take I must come out of this problem. You need people like that. They strengthen you; they hold your hand so if you joke with human beings you cannot be an entrepreneur. You need them.
Entrepreneurs are usually generous, very generous. Why? You need to put smile...If I’m passing somewhere or I go to an office and somebody is squeezing his face, I will joke with him. If I’m in a lift and a man is squeezing his face I’ll say ‘ah what is it now? Ah ha, Jesus died for you, what problem do you have? Do you have a job? I know of someone who doesn’t have a job and all his children don’t have a job so they can’t give him money. You have a job. Smile; Jesus loves you’. So the man will smile a bit and I’ll say ‘no, apart from Jesus loving you, I also love you’; and shake hands with him.
Why? You know one of the greatest problems of this nation is that we don’t value people. You can’t produce and consume it by yourself. If you can empower the population that is in this country, people will begin to struggle to come here. Treat people as if your life depends on them and you see what is going to happen. I went to an office last week and the receptionist was very nasty. So when I finished with the boss, I said ‘come, you have a wonderful receptionist; wonderful!’ I said ‘but you know like everybody under too much pressure she will snap because she’s having too much to do. You ask her to do this, do this and then she still has to attend to people’. I said ‘you know what you can do, send her on training’. He said we have trained her. I said no she needs more training. I was trying to help them solve their problem in a positive way, so I forgot to give her something. She was rude to me when I was waiting. She told me her oga was not around. I said eh you are wasting your time. If I can’t see the man I want to see the MD. She said MD too is training and I said the reason he’s training is because of people like me who give them business. So I said tell him one of the people who help him to train is here. She looked at me and said what kind of a man is this; I said yes, I’m not an ordinary man. I must get what I want, I can’t come here in this holdup, drive myself and you’ll send me away so easily. No, it’s not going to be easy.
Be generous to people everywhere you go because you need them and make it a point of duty never to fight with anybody. Fight for what now, over what? You are looking for what you are going to eat and I’m looking for what I’m going to eat. That’s all, what’s there to fight about? I make it a point of duty to be at peace and if your wahala is too much, I just step aside a little bit. If you don’t love people, you can’t carry a passion to help them solve their problem.
You can turn set back to your advantage. Make the right decisions quickly and effectively. Give a very high ethical standard; you are going to need it. Those who want to make money by all means are the ones who don’t make the money. Keep your standard; don’t cut corners. The process of making money or being a successful entrepreneur, it takes time, it takes years. It’s not going to happen overnight.
Be confident! Question the norm and when you question the norm, have confidence in your opinion. Listen, there is nobody who can; it is the way you take yourself that people will take you. If you are weak and you don’t have confidence in yourself, that’s how they are going to take you. You can’t be an entrepreneur. You have to be bold. Look at the other man they call ‘the bull’. He said a Nigerian man will run a telecoms company and he’ll give the other people a run for their money. I heard that, that man is laying a submarine cable all the way from Europe to Africa and when he finishes that, the way we do Internet would change radically. One man; and they call him ‘the bull’. Whatever it takes, he’s ready to give it. I heard that Dangote works 18 hours a day. 18 hours! He’s hard working. Entrepreneurs are not lazy people. They are working hard. They don’t fear failure, I’ve told you. They use circumstances to their maximum advantage.
Nigeria will remain the way it is until we change our mindset. Nobody is going to change Nigeria except you and I.
It is the greatest time to be in this country because the needs are just too many.
Listen to me, we are starting too late in this country. By the time a child is 15, teach her how to make money, teach him how to make money. Let him realise that. Work and earn money. When somebody works to earn money, the attitude is different. We need to put in our children. The reason why we are where we are is that we ourselves are not entrepreneurial enough and we are indulging our children. For an oyinbo man once your child is 18 he starts paying rent in your own house. You collect rent from the child. You collect the rent. Remind him when he’s going to the university ‘you have to graduate quickly o, don’t go and join cult and riot’. Listen to me, it’s an attitude, it’s a way of life. Solve the problem; move on to the next one. Don’t sit down complaining; respond to the situation and as you do so you’ll begin to see changes. Nigeria requires the effort of everybody, the government has failed us. Are you now going to fail yourself? Who cares about you; government will keep on lying, they lie everywhere in the world. It is in the nature of politicians to tell half-truth. They don’t lie but they tell half-truth.
Listen to me, we are starting too late in this country. By the time a child is 15, teach her how to make money, teach him how to make money. Let him realise that. Work and earn money. When somebody works to earn money, the attitude is different. We need to put in our children. The reason why we are where we are is that we ourselves are not entrepreneurial enough and we are indulging our children. For an oyinbo man once your child is 18 he starts paying rent in your own house. You collect rent from the child. You collect the rent. Remind him when he’s going to the university ‘you have to graduate quickly o, don’t go and join cult and riot’. Listen to me, it’s an attitude, it’s a way of life. Solve the problem; move on to the next one. Don’t sit down complaining; respond to the situation and as you do so you’ll begin to see changes. Nigeria requires the effort of everybody, the government has failed us. Are you now going to fail yourself? Who cares about you; government will keep on lying, they lie everywhere in the world. It is in the nature of politicians to tell half-truth. They don’t lie but they tell half-truth.
So ladies and gentlemen, it is a way of life. You want to solve problems. In the presence of problems, your own problem is solved.
I’ve heard people talk about capital? Where do I get money? What I want you to know is that:
Everywhere there is return; money goes there with its own two legs. Returns don’t look for money, money looks for returns. If you have a good idea, well packaged, people will give you money.
I sat down recently, I repackaged my company, I told everybody the truth this is what is going on here but if you bring this, this is what you are going to get and I raised billions. Money will follow where there is return.
How do I make my breakthrough? One of the things you can do; you can be somebody’s agent. Help them push their product and collect a commission. Help them push their service somewhere. I’m glad a program like this is coming up. As you go along this project and as you go back, begin to look at the needs in your environment, package yourself, see how money will be made there and when you see how money will be made, document it, begin to examine it, go over it several times, stimulate it, try something out.
Let me tell you this: There is an emergence now of what we call private equity market, so I’m glad that the organisers of this program are in tune with what is going on and when I go back I will tell one or two people. We are having an emergence of private equity market, people who are holding money and are looking for people with good ideas. They will put the money there as a seed, ready to wait for two or three years for the business to come up and then the sell off and go and move to another one. In most cases they will organise a company to virtually be taken to the stock market. They are coming out aggressively because everybody has seen that for Nigeria’s economy to take the turn for the better we need to go to medium scale. We need to take capital, chase and meet those who have good ideas. So this is the best time to prepare on a programme like this because the money is coming.
Why would you be a student and you won’t earn money? Because you are a student, you are waiting until you finish, that has to stop. If we can get everybody working as an entrepreneur, you’ll be amazed what will happen to our future.
God bless you. But watch, the private equity people (they) are coming to look for your ideas and the money is there.
Be prepared! I pray that God bless you.
Why would you be a student and you won’t earn money? Because you are a student, you are waiting until you finish, that has to stop. If we can get everybody working as an entrepreneur, you’ll be amazed what will happen to our future.
God bless you. But watch, the private equity people (they) are coming to look for your ideas and the money is there.
Be prepared! I pray that God bless you.
